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V^A."- 







SONS OF THE REVOLUTION 

IN THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK 

ADDRESSES 

delivered by 

Ex-Senator ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

OF INDIANA 

ON WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY 

FEBRUARY 22, 1921 



(Copyright, 1921, by Sons of the Revolution) 




From mezzotint by Wm. Sartain, after Couder. (or Sons of the Revolution. 1891. 



J2- 



c^^^^d^/^^ 



ADDRESSES 

DELIVERED BY EX-SENATOR 

ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

OF INDIANA 

ON FEBRUARY 22, 1921 



AT THE SECOND 

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION 

OF THE 

SONS OF THE REVOLUTION 
AND OTHER PATRIOTIC SOCIETIES 

AT CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK 

AND AT THE THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL BANQUET 

OF THE 

SONS OF THE REVOLUTION 

AT THE HOTEL PLAZA. NEW YORK 



"UNGUARDED GATES" 

BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 



b s\ z 



C1A61973I3 






29 J92| 






In 1920, the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New 
York conceived the idea of holding a popular meeting on the 
morning of Washington's Birthday. 

With this end in view the New York Society of the Cin- 
cinnati, Veteran Corps of Artillery, Sons of the American 
Revolution, The Colonial Dames of America, Daughters of 
the American Revolution, Daughters of the Revolution, Society 
of Colonial Wars, Colonial Dames of the State of New York, 
Daughters of the Cincinnati, and the Military Order of Foreign 
Wars were invited to join in this movement. 

As a result of this meeting, it was determined to make 
the function an annual one. 

In 1921 the Tammany Society, New England Society, Mili- 
tary Order of the World War and the Law and Order Union also 
joined in the celebration. 

This year we were fortunate in having Ex-Senator Albert 
J. Beveridge of Indiana to make the address. The Senator 
also spoke extemporaneously at the Annual Banquet in the 
evening. 

At the meeting of the Board of Managers, it was resolved 
that ten thousand copies of both addresses be printed and 
distributed to the members of the General Society, Sons of the 
Revolution, and the other Societies that participated, and 
James Mortimer Montgomery, General President, Robert 
Olyphant, President of the New York Society, and Henry Rus- 
sell Drowne, Secretary, were appointed a Committee to supervise 
the publication. 

It is deemed appropriate at this time to print the poem, 
"Unguarded Gates," by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, which, through 
the courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin Company, we are permitted 
to do. 



Address at Carnegie Hall 

By Hon. ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

President Olyphanl, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

After all, not many merely human events have changed the 
destiny of the race; and the learned are in dispute as to which 
one of these is the most important. For example, the Fall of 
Rome, the Reformation, the Renaissance, the French Revolu- 
tion, the overthrow of Napoleon, and in our own time the 
collapse of Germany and the Russian cataclysm, each has its 
champions for the primacy. So we Americans may, perhaps, 
be forgiven our belief that the most important merely human 
event in the history of the world was the founding of the Amer- 
ican Nation; and our fervent faith that the most important 
privilege that can come to merely human beings is the privilege 
that is ours, of preserving the American Nation, preserving it 
spiritually as well as in form, in meaning and purpose as well 
as in name and outward seeming. 

From the landing of the Mayflower, the American Nation 
was inevitable. The Revolution was not merely a peevish in- 
cident, due to pique at British imperial policy; the Revolution 
was the result of profound, irresistible and wholly natural 
forces that made for a separate, independent and distinctive 
nation of free men and women working out, on this detached 
and ocean-bound continent, a scheme of ordered liberty, ab- 
solutely new to mankind. 

Less than two years after Washington took command, the 
British Government was eager to stop the war on any terms, 
excepting only American independence. At the blackest hour 



of the Revolution, Washington could yet have had a victor's 
peace, had he consented that America should remain within 
the British Empire. To passionate appeals to thus end the 
war, the only answer made by that captain of our fate was the 
thunder of the American cannon at Monmouth. So, at last, 
came the American Nation. 

If, therefore, the Revolution was nothing more than an up- 
rising against grievances, if it was merely a struggle for rights 
denied us as British subjects, the last four years of that epic 
conflict was a senseless and a wicked waste of blood and treasure; 
and George Washington, instead of being glorious, was infamous. 
The American continuance of the war, after the British efforts 
to end it by conceding all demands except American independ- 
ence, can be justified only upon the ground that the patriots 
were fighting to establish a new, a distinctive and an absolutely 
independent nation. On any other ground, Washington and his 
associates were little, obstinate men, willing to sacrifice the 
happiness of a people and the destiny of a race in the further- 
ance of their insect ambitions; and deserving of the bitter, 
scathing epithets with which British statesmen, the British 
press, and the British people thenceforth lashed them. 

Redress of wrongs was, of course, the immediate cause — the 
instant occasion — that set in motion the armed movement 
against British rule; but in the smoke of battle the patriots be- 
held that ineffable vision which became their inspiration, sus- 
taining them through suffering, desolation and death — the 
vision of an America unchained, arbiter of her own destiny and 
charged with the performance of a separate and a sacred 
mission in the world. 

The military part of his work finished, Washington became 
the supreme law-giver of his liberated country. It was due to 
his initiative, steady purpose and compelling influence that the 
ablest plan ever devised for the co-ordination of stability and 
freedom, the Constitution of the United States was adopted 

6 



as America's fundamental law. He laid aside the sword, 
yet kept it within easy reach, ever ready to safeguard and 
defend what it alone had won; for he knew that the man or na- 
tion that will not fight for imperiled interests, violated rights 
or insulted honor, will lose them all and ought to lose them all. 

Finally, at the summit of his career, standing on the ultimate 
heights of experience-tested wisdom, the most august human 
figure of all time, "alone and unapproachable like a snow-clad 
peak rising above its fellows in the clear air of morning," as 
Lord Bryce accurately describes him, Washington gave for the 
eternal guidance of the Republic the most practical and prophetic 
chart of national conduct ever drawn by the sagacity and pre- 
vision of man — the immortal Farewell Address. 

The Mayflower Compact, the Declaration, the Constitution, 
the Farewell Address — these are the massive and solid corner- 
stones of the enduring foundation on which the American 
people have builded their national well-being and security. 

The Farewell Address states not only the final judgment of 
Washington, but also the settled opinion of every one of that 
company of statesmen who, by his side, strove to establish our 
Republic and to make it imperishable — a group of statesmen 
the like of which the world never before saw or since has seen 
in a single country at a single time. Moreover, Washington's 
final advice to America was the only policy on which all these 
unrivaled masters of statecraft ever agreed; on other ques- 
tions they sharply divided — on this, and on this alone, all of 
them were in complete and militant accord. 

No such unanimity of judgment ever before or since, in any 
country or at any time, concluded the prolonged deliberations 
of the councils of the wise — for the Farewell Address was the 
result of almost continuous consultation for nearly four years, 
and at a period not entirely unlike phases of that from which 
the world is now emerging. 

The heart of this Decalogue of Americanism is friendship 

7 



for all nations, alliance with none. The united conclusion of 
the founders of the American Republic was, to quote Wash- 
ington's exact words, that "by interweaving our destiny with 
that of any part of Europe," we will "entangle our peace and 
prosperity in the toils of European ambitions, rivalship, interest, 
humor and caprice." From their own bitter experience and 
humiliating disillusionment, the Fathers, through Washington, 
warned us against "the insidious wiles of foreign influence" and 
"the impostures of pretended patriotism." 

Every word of the Farewell Address might have been written 
in 1921, so peculiarly applicable is that great state paper to 
conditions that afflict the American people today. The gravest 
anti-American influence in Washington's time was foreign propa- 
ganda; it was in 1796 that he declared that "foreign influence 
is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government." 
From the very beginning America has been the most propa- 
ganda-ridden country in the world. 

From the very beginning every foreign government, to the 
exact extent that its interests were affected, and only as its 
interests were affected, has sought to use the United States for 
its own advantage. It is vital that Americans bear in mind 
that foreign propagandists, no matter from what nation they 
come, always strive to advance foreign interests only, and never 
to promote American interests. 

Within recent years that ancient process, which so alarmed 
and angered the poised, fearless and steady Washington, has 
been renewed with increased power. Presuming on the circum- 
stance that millions of American citizens are of German blood, 
the German government, before and during the war, spread its 
evil propaganda through every channel of American life. When, 
at last, we realized that deadly peril to our national security, we 
crushed it beneath the heel of a mighty and a righteous wrath. 

From that demonstration of American sense and spirit, one 
not familiar with American history — as, alas!, most Americans 

8 



are not — would have thought that, for a season at least, we 
would be permitted to go untroubled by foreign efforts to sway 
American public sentiment to foreign uses. Yet, at this very 
moment, more than ever before, foreign propaganda is busy 
among us; and with a skill, cunning and resourcefulness born 
of vast experience and meticulous observation. 

At no time since Yorktown, has Washington's foresight been 
more justified by events than it is today. At no time have we 
more needed to heed his warning against what he termed "pas- 
sionate attachments'' for some nations and "inveterate antip- 
athies'' to others. 

At no time have Americans had greater reason to observe 
Washington's maxim that "the nation which indulges toward 
another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some 
degree a slave — a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either 
of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its true interests." 

At no time has his statement been more fully verified that 
"real patriots, who may resist foreign intrigue, are liable to be- 
come suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the 
applause and confidence of the people to surrender their in- 
terests." 

At no time have the well-being and security of the United 
States more thoroughly required that every citizen of the Re- 
public shall be American, wholly American, and nothing but 
American — exclusively American in thought, exclusively Ameri- 
can in sympathy, exclusively American in body, mind and soul, 
heart so overflowing with patriotic devotion that it can hold 
no other love. 

Swarms of foreign propagandists are creeping all over Amer- 
ica, delivering lectures, preaching sermons, giving interviews, 
writing articles, cajoling those deemed influential with American 
public sentiment. They infest American journalism, are in- 
vading American universities, have captured a section of that 
small but potent group called American "society" — excellent 

9 



people, but of the type, familiar to us, whose desire for social 
recognition in foreign capitals sometimes blinds them to the in- 
terests of their own country. 

Worst of all, our common schools are being made culture 
beds of non-American ideas. School histories have been written 
for our children which not only suppress or misstate vital facts, 
but actually set forth as historical truths, recent European 
views of the origin, nature and mission of the United States. 
Most of our school histories are still fairly accurate, still 
predominantly American; but some new ones — and an increas- 
ing number — might well have been written at the direction 
of certain foreign governments. 

If it be said that such an educational policy is advisable to 
the readjustment of our international relations, the answer is 
that no wise or righteous cause requires the falsification of 
history. For example, a school history for Southern children is 
in manuscript, awaiting publication, which tells the facts about 
Sherman's march to the sea; on the other hand, the horrible 
truth has been printed about the treatment of Union soldiers 
in Confederate prisons and prison camps. Concede, merely for 
argument's sake, that, in the interest of a reunited nation, 
it would be better if these circumstances were forgotten; even 
so, will anybody contend that our school histories should inform 
our children that Sherman disturbed nothing and left abundance 
behind him; or that Union soldiers in Confederate prisons and 
prison camps were supplied with wholesome food and feather- 
bedsP 

Yet this is the theory upon which some school books are being 
written and printed about the struggle for American Independ- 
ence and the founding and development of the American Nation. 
If American parents realized the attempts that are being made 
through school histories to falsely teach our children parts of 
the story of our country and thus prevent their exclusive de- 
votion to America, there would be such a sustained outburst 

10 



of patriotic public sentiment as would paralyze these efforts to 
poison, at their profound sources, the very springs of our national 
being. 

Every sensible American wants the most cordial relations with 
other nations, especially with those who were our comrades in 
arms during the war with Germany. But those relations must 
be sound and honest; and foreign propaganda that strives to 
extinguish the spirit of American nationalism and attempts 
to jam down our throats the ancient mess of "common interests," 
dished up in Washington's day and detected and denounced by 
him, is as stupid as it is outrageous. Such methods delay and 
prevent the very end sought to be secured by them, since 
Americans who heartily wish for international good feeling 
and ardently hope for the coming of what Mr. Beck so elo- 
quently terms the "spiritual empire" of kindred nations, resent 
such methods and will resist them to the uttermost. All that 
we ask is to be let alone to develop our national life and work 
out our national destiny for ourselves. 

If the Farewell Address had never been written, still the basic 
facts of American life today would compel the immediate adop- 
tion of the exact foreign policy devised by the founders of our 
Republic and announced by Washington more than a century 
and a quarter ago. For if that policy was wise and necessary 
then it is infinitely wiser and more necessary now. 

What are the basic facts of American life todayP They are 
our geographical situation and, even more commanding, the 
racial structure of our population — a structure which is in 
startling contrast with that existing when the Farewell Address 
was delivered. Then we were a thousand times more homo- 
geneous than we are now— contrasted with our present racial 
make-up, we were then one people in language, blood and origin; 
today we are a collection of racial groups, not one of which out- 
numbers all the others. 

Today millions of Americans are of Italian blood, millions of 

11 



Polish blood, millions of Scandinavian blood, tens of millions 
of Irish blood and other tens of millions of German blood. 
We have myriads of Greek blood; and swarms of our citizens 
came from Russia, Belgium, and the Balkans. We of British 
origin — I am of Scotch blood myself — no longer are in the ma- 
jority; and our comparative numerical strength steadily declines. 

Thus the American Nation is unlike any other on earth. 
Our supreme task is to weld our various racial elements into a 
single people of one blood and one language, with a single 
national consciousness exclusively American. Any policy that 
tends to draw our racial groups together is good for America; 
any policy that tends to draw our racial groups asunder is bad 
for America. This plain truth is the vital principle of Ameri- 
can foreign statesmanship. 

That is why any political association whatever, with any 
foreign government whatever, is as foolish as it is unpatriotic; 
the moment such an international proposal is even suggested, 
the welding process not only stops but is reversed; the moment 
we interfere or even are asked to interfere or in any way mix up 
in foreign political broils or problems, that moment America's 
citizenship is divided into hostile camps on purely racial lines 
— we become a racial madhouse, convulsed by racial fury instead 
of being a mighty and harmonious nation whose people are in- 
spired by single-hearted devotion to the Republic. 

Human nature makes this result inevitable; and existing facts, 
as ominous as they are obvious, establish it beyond dispute. 
It is useless to scold, stupid to denounce. America's foreign 
policy is fixed by fundamental certainties which, for genera- 
tions, no power in the universe can remove; and that policy is 
so accurately stated in the Farewell Address, that devout men 
and women may well see in it the hand of God. 

Scarcely a day passes but there are urged upon us international 
schemes which can be dealt with only by the Washingtonian 
policy, interpreted in the light of the present racial structure of 

12 



our citizenship. Take, for example, the attractive proposal so 
ardently advocated by many excellent and patriotic people for 
the permanent political solidarity of the European allies and 
the United States. Everybody knows that such an arrange- 
ment would be bitterly resented by prodigious numbers of Amer- 
icans—perhaps a majority; and not only as individuals but as 
members of vast racial organizations. 

We of British descent would do the same thing ourselves if 
the situation were reversed; and therefore we cannot complain 
of the state of mind of our fellow-citizens whose racial origin 
differs from our own. Suppose, for example, these racial groups 
that oppose permanent American union with the European 
allies, were to advocate the same sort of connection with their 
favorite nations. Would we submit to itP Would we tolerate 
itP No! we would fight it to the death. 

Everybody knows that such a matter could not be kept out of 
American politics; and that immense groups of our citizens 
would be torn with hatred for one another by purely foreign 
and wholly un-American causes. Did I say that we all know 
that such questions could not be kept out of politicsP We 
know that they are in politics this very minute— and never 
in my life have 1 weighed my words more carefully or spoken 
more solemnly than when I say this: friends, unless we Americans 
immediately return to the broad highway of American national- 
ism, the time is almost here when our American elections will 
be settled by foreign and not by American considerations. 

It does not require the vision of a seer to behold, even so soon 
as the next presidential campaign, each of the national chairmen 
of the two great political parties behind locked doors at their 
party headquarters here in New York, meeting the heads of 
great racial organizations and bargaining with those leaders 
tor the mass vote of their members; bargaining on what terms- 
American termsP No! but on what an incoming administra- 
tion might be pledged to do with reference to particular foreign 
countries, or combinations of foreign countries. 



13 



Infinitely more important to us than any international solidar- 
ity, is American solidarity. American solidarity! — that is our 
herculean and enduring task, our tremendous, intricate and con- 
tinuing problem, beside which other tasks and problems are 
small, simple, transient and fleeting. 

Or, take the most incessant demand now made upon us — the 
cancellation of our war loans, or, by some of the many devices 
constantly put forward, the extinction of debts due us from 
European Nations. We cannot solve such a problem by eco- 
nomics only, or by generosity only, or by any of the reasons so 
skillfully advanced, or by all these considerations put together — 
not even though some of them, standing alone, were sound. We 
also must take into account the effect upon the racial groups of 
which America's population is composed. 

Comparison is made of the war-debts of America and of the 
European nations that opposed Germany, with the war-debts 
of the States that conducted our Revolution; and we are told 
that the international war obligations of today must be pooled 
at the very least. But if that were tried we should have, not 
the resistance of States on grounds of State pride, State jealousy 
and State resentment, such as was made to Hamilton's plan; 
but the resistance of racial groups of citizens on grounds of racial 
pride, racial jealousy and racial resentment. Moreover, no 
informed American, whatever his origin, will for a moment ad- 
mit the historical precedent on which the pooling scheme is 
advanced. 

It is said that we ought, unconditionally, to cancel the war 
indebtedness of other nations to us, because all fought in the 
same cause. But is that trueP Do the war treaties show that 
other nations entered the conflict for identical reasonsP As to 
ourselves — did not Congress declare that we made war on Ger- 
many because Germany had been and was making war on us 
— and is not Congress the only power that can declare war or, 
with authority, state the reasons for doing soP 

14 



Upon the ground taken by Congress, the American Nation 
was united as never before in our history. Would this have been 
the case had Congress stated the reason now advanced for our 
drawing the swordP Could the declaration of war have been 
passed at all, had it been based upon that reasonP And what 
was the understanding of our soldiersP 

Go — as I have done from Maine to California — go ask the 
men who did the fighting whether they went to battle for 
"world purposes" or to maintain the interests, rights and honor 
of America, violated, outraged and insulted by an arrogant, 
ruthless, wicked government. A thousand to one, the men who 
did the fighting will tell you that they went to war to whip 
Germany, their country's enemy, and not to make America the 
wet nurse of newly incubated nations or the drudge and pro- 
vider of ancient and conquest-swollen governments. Our men 
who did the fighting will tell you that they alone would have 
fought Germany for the sole reason stated by Congress — yes, 
and any country whatever that assailed America as Germany 
assailed America. 

What would George Washington have done in this situation. 3 
Washington was always watchful of American interests only; so 
was every one of the founders of this Republic. If Washington 
and his confreres were in charge of the Nation's business today, 
do you suppose that they would even discuss the pooling of 
international debts or the cancellation of American loansP 
Yet we recognize the difficulty and hardship of payment; and 
therefore, grievous as the burden of taxation on our own peo- 
ple is and will be in carrying the awful load of debt piled upon 
them to get the billions loaned to other nations, cannot a method 
of financial adjustment be found that will recompense us to 
some extent and prevent much bad feelingP 

Consider the following suggestion, offered with hesitation 
and only as a possible way out; for if some other method is not 
devised, America's loans to European nations will never be can- 
celled except by payment in full and payment in money. 

15 



We loaned to Great Britain about $4,500,000,000, all but 
one-eighteenth of which she re-loaned to her allies; and in addi- 
tion, we also loaned to them more than as much again as we 
loaned to Great Britain. As spoils of war, Great Britain ac- 
quired the most extensive territorial accessions in the history 
of conquest; while the other leading nations at war with Ger- 
many, excepting only the United States, vastly extended their 
territorial possessions — and we are glad they did. Moreover, 
Great Britain's hold on the world's trade is greatly strengthened, 
while America's situation as to foreign commerce is desperate. 

Great Britain owns most of the West Indies — that chain of 
islands that guard the Gulf of Mexico; she also owns the Ber- 
mudas to our Southeast, and a small but strategic part of Cen- 
tral America, called British Honduras. None of these pos- 
sessions are of the slightest value to her except as naval sta- 
tions; and, even as naval stations, they are of no use to her ex- 
cept as bases for attack upon us, which is, of course, unthinka- 
ble. But these possessions are worth considerable to us as out- 
posts of defense. 

Would it not be wise for Great Britain to reduce her debt by 
transferring to the United States these essentially and naturally 
American islands, and her holdings in Central AmericaP Would 
not such an exchange go far to quiet mutually hostile clamor and 
to strengthen mutual trust and esteemP 

Since the payment of American loans to other governments 
will be, increasingly, a source of dispute and irritation where 
only concord and good-will should exist, does not the idea of 
the exchange of British possessions at our very doors for the re- 
duction of Great Britain's debt to us, deserve the serious con- 
sideration of the statesmen and people of both countries. 3 

France, like Great Britain, has a far-flung colonial empire — 
next to that of her mighty and triumphant ally, the most ex- 
tensive and profitable aggregation of dependencies on earth, in 
area much larger than the United States, including all our terri- 

10 



BBBBBBRSBSS 



tories and possessions. Insignificant items of her colonial pos- 
sessions are her West Indian Islands, part of the chain most of 
which Great Britain owns. These islands are worthless to 
France, but of some value to us — not much, but some. Might 
they not be utilized, with mutual advantage to France and 
America, in the reduction of French indebtedness. 3 

As a cold financial transaction, the transfer of these islands 
to the United States would go but a little way toward extinguish- 
ing France's obligations; but would it not be good policy to 
cancel part of our loans to our sister Republic in exchange for 
Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. MartinP Would not such an 
arrangement be far-seeing and broad-minded statesmanship on 
both sidesP Would it not relieve France's monetary distress, 
raise her purchasing power, and save her self-respect which 
shrinks from the thought of accepting almsP 

These are, of course, only tentative suggestions as to possi- 
ble solutions of a part of our international financial problem- 
solutions that might, perhaps, check and reduce irritation here 
and in Europe, keep down racial discontent among our own 
citizens, and aid in the restoration of America to that broad, solid 
and plain highway upon which alone she can successfully pur- 
sue her interests and achieve her mission. 

No man, no nation can fully live without the purifying and 
vitalizing power of a great ideal. Such an ideal cannot spring 
from unsubstantial fancy, cannot be born of artifice, is never the 
child of hate. It can come only from the heart of nature, only 
from fundamental circumstances, only from a just conception 
of that man or nation's true mission in the world. The useful- 
ness to mankind of an Edison or a Shakespeare would have 
been destroyed had either tried to do the work for which alone 
the other was peculiarly fitted. 

How is it with America. 3 Her people came from many coun- 
tries, and are blood relatives of many nations. They occupy 
a continent midway between Europe and Asia, a situation per- 

17 



feet either for peaceful intercourse or for defensive war. Nature 
and Providence have placed us on the throne of the world, be- 
yond and above the jealousies, hatreds and ambitions of ancient 
peoples, if only we will not cast into boiling and poisonous for- 
eign cauldrons the gifts of God. 

Our divinely appointed task is, therefore, to create a new race 
among mankind — a race compounded of the most virile human 
elements of the old world — a distinctive race, akin to the peo- 
ple of every other nation, yet unlike those of any other nation — 
a race that shall be known to the world and to history as ex- 
clusively American. Our divinely ordained mission is to de- 
velop and exercise, by friendship with all and partnership with 
none, a moral influence circling the globe, and impossible to any 
other human power that ever existed or can exist. 

So our ideal is America — America the impartial and the 
just; America the beneficent and the free; America the righteous 
and the wise; America the fearless and independent; America 
as planned by our fathers and to be perfected by our children; 
America the mightiest force for good that ever was or is or will 
be throughout the earth; America, "among the nations bright 
beyond compare," our only passion and our only love; the 
America beheld in the exalted and, pray God, the prophetic 
vision of George Washington. 



18 



Informal Remarks at the Banquet 

By Hon. ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

When President Olyphant was polite enough to write me, 
asking me to stay overnight and speak for a little while, I wrote 
back, I thought, with equal politeness, that I would be glad to 
do so, and thanked him for the compliment; but said that what 
I would have to say would have to be brief; and he, not to be 
outdone in politeness, wrote back and said, "That will be all 
right; the briefer, the better." (Laughter.) 

I haven't anything prepared. Your press representative 
asked me for my manuscript. I told him I hadn't any; that I 
got off all the manuscript I had in me this morning. It makes 
me feel like apologizing in the beginning, because I don't like 
to hear an extemporaneous speech, and 1 don't like to make 
one. My observation has been that the extemporaneous speaker 
seldom says anything, and never gets through saying it. 
(Laughter.) Very much like the description of the sentences of 
that great lawyer and statesman, William M. Everett, who 
used sentences about as long as Henry James. One day, when 
he was arguing a great railroad case before the Supreme Court, 
he got tangled up in one of his interminable sentences and 
stopped and said, "Your Honors will perceive that my sen- 
tences are like this railroad— they lack terminal facilities." 
(Laughter.) 

But the fact that I haven't anything prepared ought to give 
you some comfort because it assuredly saves you from the fate 
that Dooley said, I visited on the Senate the first time I spoke 
there. Dooley told Hennessy about that event, and said: 

19 



'r""-"r 



"Then up 'ris' young Sinator Beveridge and proceeded to de- 
liver a few hundred thousand carefully prepared extemporaneous 
remarks." (Laughter.) 

So I told President Olyphant, as I rose here, that in view of 
the fact that this wasn't prepared, that although I was resolved 
not to speak longer than two or three minutes, God knows when 
I would get through. (Laughter.) 

I am reminded of the recent visit I made to this town to ad- 
dress the Bar Association of the City of New York. I got to 
speaking on the development of the American Constitution, 
that old-fashioned document which, thank God, is coming into 
style again (applause); and 1 understand that it has been a 
matter of considerable debate since then, between members 
of the Bar Association, as to whether I spoke ten or twelve min- 
utes short of three hours. (Laughter.) 

I am tempted to repeat part of the argument of my thesis 
of this morning, which is the melancholy fact that we are not 
a people in the sense that the French or Italians or Germans 
or English or Japanese are a people, but rather a collection of 
racial groups, which is the reason why our foreign policy can- 
not possibly be what another country's is. But since I am 
on this subject, I am reminded of an incident that occurred 
during the war, that may illustrate it even better than an 
argument. Doubtless you have heard it. 

It is the story of an Irish Sergeant who was calling the roll 
of his Company: "RocozziP" "Here!" Check. "DuBoisP" 
"Here!" Check. "SmirnoffP" "Here!" Check. "Schwartz- 
ensteinP" "Here!" Check. "FlanaganP — thank God for that 
good American name!" (Laughter.) Yet all of these soldiers 
were good Americans; but they naturally get fussed up when 
the United States mixes up in foreign politics. 

Now the eloquent doctor has said that that supreme man, 
George Washington, who brought about the Constitution more 
than any other human power, was not satisfied with it. Well, 

20 



I suppose that is true. Hardly anybody was satisfied with it. 
Those master makers of our fundamental law — which they did 
not draw from any other source that is human! — were not 
satisfied. But what of it? 

"The hand that rounded Peter's dome 
And groined the aisles of ancient Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity 
Himself from God he could not free; 
The conscious stone to beauty grew; 
He builded better than he knew!" (Applause.) 

I am down for a few remarks about The American Constitu- 
tion. I beg that you shall not be alarmed at that subject. I 
am not going to speak at length on the Eighteenth Amendment. 
(Laughter.) And so far as that is concerned, if George Wash- 
ington was dissatisfied with the original document, I wonder 
what his state of mind would be today. (Laughter.) The 
enthusiasm with which that remark is received, would seem to 
indicate that it has a hidden meaning that we don't know any- 
thing about in the Middle West; and it convinces me that per- 
haps it was of an eminent lawyer of New York and not of Chi- 
cago, of whom the story is told on good authority, that two or 
three weeks ago, when it was sleety, he was walking down the 
street with some companions and slipped and fell on his hip. 
He jumped up and, feeling something running down his leg, ex- 
claimed, "My God! I hope that's blood." (Laughter.) 

Now of course we have been debating the Constitution for 
about one hundred and thirty-five years, and therefore I am 
not going to prolong the discussion (laughter) by any disagree- 
ment with my good friend here, although I might point out that 
of course the "common law" was never adopted by the United 
States as a nation, but only by the states, and that that very 
conflict was one of the mighty issues of one of the most important 
presidential elections that ever occurred in the country. I 
will say a few words about this Constitution. I am not going to 

21 



imitate the theological method to which our friend referred and 
go into a disquisition about our entire Constitutional theory, 
but will touch two or three high spots. 

There are two respects in which our Constitution (I guess 
everybody will agree to this) is absolutely indigenous. It is dis- 
tinctively American, with no other constitutional law or method 
on earth that in the least resembles it. The first is, in our 
American Constitutional doctrine the courts have the power to 
overthrow acts of Congress or legislatures. That has well 
been called the cornerstone of American jurisprudence. The 
courts of no other country in the world have that power, or 
anything like it. And when that greatest jurist and states- 
man of all time, John Marshall, decided that there must be 
some power in this country that could say definitively and with 
final authority what is and what is not law, and that that power 
should be the courts, the Constitution was amended, and perma- 
nently amended, as though precisely that statement had been 
written into it. 

Now that feature of our law has suffered more attack, for a 
longer period, than any other but one, and that one I shall 
mention in a minute. From 1800 until now, there has been 
a persistent, intermittent, but nevertheless never-ceasing at- 
tack upon the power of the American courts over legislation — 
and if any of you gentlemen think that those attacks have 
ended, you will change your minds before this present decade 
has expired; I see even now, indications of undoubted renewal 
of the attacks on our courts. 

The argument against this power is old. I must confess, 
there was a time when it appealed to me. It has been said, 
and is said now, that this is an autocratic power; that to give 
judges the power over legislation passed by the representatives 
of the people is to make them not only judges but also legisla- 
tors; that such power isn't necessary to the protection of prop- 
erty or of individual liberty, or of the rights of minorities; in 



proof of this we are pointed to the omnipotent Parliament of 
Great Britain, whose acts no court dare interfere with ; and we are 
told to look upon the security of property and the sanctity of 
individual liberty, and the maintenance of rights of minorities 
in England, as a conclusive proof that our American judicial 
power over legislation is neither wise, just, nor consistent with 
the spirit of liberty. Now that does seem to be an attractive, 
and, at first thought, an unanswerable argument, does it notP 

But think deeper. Friends, has democracy in England yet 
faced its testP What is it that heretofore has made property 
secure and the rights of minorities intact, and individual liberty 
safe in that country? Well, I think all authorities are agreed 
that it is the prevision, moderation, wisdom, and restraint of the 
ablest, most far-seeing body of men which ever, in one country, 
continuously through generations, shaped the policy of an empire, 
— the hereditary ruling class of England. (Applause.) 

Macaulay declared that it was this influence that has always 
stood between ordered liberty and ravaging license in the United 
Kingdom. But the English hereditary ruling class is fast dis- 
appearing. It received its death wound in 1911, when, under 
the leadership of that greatest Parliamentarian since Gladstone, 
Herbert Asquith, the House of Lords was practically over- 
thrown; and while the hereditary ruling class of Great Britain 
is now dominant in her foreign affairs, its days are numbered 
in her domestic affairs. 

Only a few years — five, or ten at the most — and that re- 
straint will be gone; and then, when the majority can compel 
the enactment into law of its sudden whim, born of its temporary 
passion, what then will become of individual liberty, what then 
will become of the security of property, what then will become 
of the rights of minoritiesP When that moment comes (and it is 
almost here), English democracy for the first time will face its 
real crisis and endure its real test — and then it is not impossi- 

23 



ble that they will wish that they had the American system of 
just and impartial courts, that shall be above administrations, 
Congresses, Parliaments and mobs, and majorities, and minori- 
ties, and every other human power, to stand for righteousness 
and justice and liberty and law. (Applause.) 

Just one other point of difference. Ours is the only Constitu- 
tion — and I am just leaving these two points in your mind to- 
night because both of them are going to be subject to imme- 
diate attack; I have named one part of our Constitutional law 
which is unlike that of any other country in the world that ever 
existed; I think I am right about that; I will name another. 

Under our Constitution, no state, no municipality, etc., can . 

pass any law or ordinance violating the obligations of contract. 
And again, under the great Chief Justice, in two decisions that 
were epochal, as critical points in our history as any battle 
that was ever fought — Fletcher versus Peck, and the Dart- 
mouth College cases — it was decided (and it is our Constitutional 
law now) that that applied not only to the contract between 
man and man, but also to contracts between a corporate body 
and a municipality, or even a so-called sovereign state ; that when 
a municipality, through its agents, or a state, through its duly 
elected representatives, made a contract with either an indi- 
vidual or a corporation, that that contract was under the sacred 
protection of the Constitution of the Nation. 

That doctrine has been furiously assailed; it has been modi- 
fied somewhat, but whether wisely only history can tell. There 
was a time when even I thought that it seemed harsh; and the 
surface argument against it apparently is unanswerable and 
most persuasive, especially to the unthinking and emotional. 
It is said, with immense plausibility, "What! shall corrupt alder- 
men or corrupt members of a legislature be permitted to barter 
away the 'patrimony of a people,' and that people to be without 
redressP" That is a very attractive argument; but go deeper, 

24 



search for the foundations of this peculiar and distinctive fea- 
ture of our American Constitutional law, and what does it mean. 3 

It means this: first that our American idea of economic 
civilization is founded on good faith, on the plighted word, on 
the sacredness of contract; second, that the security and justice 
of our government begin with the citizen himself, at the polls; 
and that if he be so negligent and careless and ignorant and in- 
different as to allow machines or politicians to put into office, to 
represent him, dishonest or slothful or cowardly or ignorant 
men, then the citizen cannot escape the consequences of his own 
act in government any more than he can in law, in a court of 
justice. 

It means that if we want our government properly adminis- 
tered and our public property securely and wisely taken care of, 
then we who boast of our "liberty" shall exercise it and go to the 
polls and elect honorable, wise, industrious, well-informed and 
brave men — and that is the only way to save "the patrimony of 
the people." (Applause.) The people may not be slothful in the 
exercise of their own civic duties and then expect the courts to 
relieve them of the consequences of their own acts. (Applause.) 

I was inspired to mention these two things because of intima- 
tions that I have heard from time to time, that after all our Con- 
stitution is not peculiar, not distinctively American. I could go 
on for a great length of time, but I am citing these merely as 
examples, that you may remember at least these two instances 
where the fundamental law of the American Republic is abso- 
lutely distinctive and utterly unlike that of any other law on 
earth, that ever existed on earth. (Great Applause.) 

I have about made up my mind during these recent years 
that I have been giving all the research I could to the American 
Constitution and the foundations of the Nation, that after all, 
with all its defects (and all human things are defective), never- 
theless the American Constitution is, as I said this morning, 
the ablest and the wisest plan for the co-ordination of stability 



and freedom that ever has been formed by the sagacity and pre- 
vision of man. (Applause.) I am convinced that the American 
Government, with all its defects, is the best form of government 
that the human race has ever known! (Cheers.) 

And as to the Constitution, just this one final word. I don't 
think I can give the thought to you any better than to relate a 
little correspondence I had with a young newspaper man in a 
certain city where I had spoken. He was reporting my remarks 
before the Bar Association, on the Development of the American 
Constitution under Marshall; and I had a letter from him. He 
is a very brilliant young man, just as sincere as he is 
brilliant, and he said that up to that very moment he had 
always followed me in the positions I had taken in public affairs, 
but from that moment he would have to part company with me; 
that the idea of making a fetish out of the Constitution was not 
only unreasonable but abhorrent; that neither governments nor 
Constitutions were divine; that the people were not made for the 
Constitution, but the Constitution was made for the people; 
and therefore it must be, as governments must be, subject to 
any change that is necessary for their welfare — and all that 
sort of thing. 

I was greatly touched and I answered him at considerable 
length, busy as I was, because I knew first of all that he was 
honest, and second, that he represented accurately a great and 
a growing public sentiment now prevailing increasingly, espe- 
cially among our young men, and I said to him: "Without any 
argument about these axioms upon which we all agree, let me 
point this out to you: That we are now entering upon the most 
serious decade in American history, not excepting that of the 
Civil War; that you as a newspaper man certainly know that 
within the ten years which have now begun, we shall hear more 
extravagant doctrines preached than we have heard advocated 
since our Constitution was adopted. Perhaps some of the doc- 
trines will be sound; but others will be annihilative, and what 

26 



we have to do is to keep calm judgment and clear vision — and 
how shall we do thatP Don't you see, my boy, that there is 
one thing that is absolutely essential, and that is that we shall 
have something firm on which we can plant our feet, from which 
we can take our bearings, from which we can make accurate 
surveys as to what is true and what is false; some Rock of Ages 
within whose shadow we can retain sanity — and what have we 
here in America to answer that essential purpose excepting only 
the Constitution of the United StatesP" (Great Applause.) 

"Don't you see that that is the reason why, for at least these 
coming ten years the 'worship' of the Constitution is not too 
strong a word for the emotion with which we should regard our 
fundamental lawP" 

I was made happy when I got a letter back from that young 
man, saying, "Yes, I see it — I see it at last! It was so obvious 
and clear that that was the reason I didn't see it. You are 
right in standing by the Constitution, and I will stand with 
you to the end!" (Applause.) 

Then I wrote him — I must apologize now; I am speaking with 
more feeling than I usually feel or show. I said, "I am going 
to ask you to commit to memory these lines, the only immortal 
lines that Longfellow ever wrote" — and he told me when I saw 
him last, that he had done it. The lines have steadied me in 
the midst of many a hurricane. I wish they might be written not 
only over every fireside in the land, but on the heart of every 
citizen of the Republic; his lines which I honestly and firmly 
believe were inspired of God, addressed to the American Nation 
and the Constitution of our American Fathers. You will recall 
them when I mention the first line. Longfellow says: 

"Thou, too, sail on, Oh Ship of State! 
Sail on, Oh Nation, proud and great! 
Humanity with all its fears, 
With all its hopes of coming years, 
Is hanging breathless on Thy Fate! 

27 



"We know what Master laid Thy Keel, 
What workmen wrought Thy Ribs of Steel, 

What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 

In what a forge and what a heat 
Were shaped the Anchors of our Hope. 

"Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock; 
'Tis but the flapping of the sail 
And not a rent made by the gale; 

In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea." — America! 

(Cheering and prolonged applause.) 



28 



Unguarded Gates 

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, 

Names of the four winds, North, South, East and West; 

Portals that lead to an enchanted land 

Of cities, forests, fields of living gold, 

Vast prairies, lordly summits touched with snow, 

Majestic rivers sweeping proudly past 

The Arab's date palm and the Norseman's pine— 

A realm wherein are fruits of every zone, 

Airs of all climes, for, lo! throughout the year 

The red rose blossoms somewhere — a rich land 

A later Eden planted on the wilds, 

With not an inch of earth within its bound 

But if a slave's foot press it sets him free. 

Here it is written, Toil shall have its wage, 

And Honor honor, and the humblest man 

Stand level with the highest in the law. 

Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed, 

And with the visions brightening in their eyes 

Gone smiling to the faggot and the sword. 

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, 

And through them presses a wild motley throng — 

Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes, 

Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho, 

Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt and Slav, 

Flying the old worlds poverty and scorn; 

These bringing with them unknown gods and rites — 

Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. 

In street and alley what strange tongues are loud 

Accents of menace alien to our air, 

Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew! 

29 



O Liberty, white goddess! is it well 
To leave the gates unguardedP On thy breast 
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate, 
Lift the downtrodden, but with hand of steel 
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come 
To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care 
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn 
And trampled in the dust. For so of old, 
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome, 
And where the temples of the Caesars stood 
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 

By permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin Company, 
the authorized publishers. 



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